Tarana Halim says mobile handsets will not be registered now

State Minister for Posts and Telecommunications Tarana Halim has said mobile handsets will not be registered now, although preparation of an IMEI database is in the pipeline to prevent illegal and duplicate cell phones.

She was speaking at a seminar organised by Telecom Reporters Network Bangladesh at Dhaka’s Westin Hotel on Saturday.

In December last year, the state minister said registrations of handset IMEI numbers would start in February 2016.

The International Mobile Station Equipment Identity or IMEI is a unique number, to identify 3GPP and iDEN mobile phones.

Speaking at the seminar, Tarana said, “We will start mobile handset IMEI registration, but not now. Right now we want to finish the biometric SIM registration process.”

She said an IMEI database will be installed and maintained in a server with the help of BTRC within a month.

“Customers can see their IMEI number on BTRC website and can verify it through SMS service,” she said.

Every authentic handset has a 15 digit IMEI code which is displayed if a buyer types *#06#. A spurious handset will not have such codes.

BTRC Chairman Dr Shahjahan Mahmood said a large number of illegal handsets were currently in the market without BTRC’s approval.

Bangladesh Mobile Phone Importers' Association president Ruhul Alam Al Mahbub Manik said 30 percent of the handsets in market were not authentic.